Declined Vsh Hale rebalancing (1 Viewer)

[Heather]

Just to make a check list for future
> Goomba damage, rebound force and damage scaling off of hp // Organised clear instructions to make modifications to it
> Weapon stats, abilities for weapons etc // Mostly figured out but some weapons pull unique modded weapon id's rather than their actual base ids making certain stats harder to find
> Knockback values // This requires editing the tf2attributes.sp file, despite it being a readily accessible file, downloading the base file online leaves a lot to be desired with very little to go off of, I think it'd be easier to look at a copy of the one currently being used on the server to figure out the line that needs to be changed
> Class Limits and weapon restrictions // This looks to be the easiest of the bunch due to it being its own separate plugin with very clear cut configuration

 

[SharpTips]

I'm still not fond of the Goomba scout meta. Goomba is problematic for 2 reasons, the damage and the inability for hale to superjump,

Isn't it just possible to play with goomba_minspeed? Make it so that players in general would need way more velocity in order to register a goomba. I've tried it on my server, worked just fine.

Also, inability for the hale to superjump? I won't say I disagree with you completely, because it is true to an extent but not like the way you described it.
Sure, you'll have times when scouts would just fly all over your head to try and stomp you but I don't see how taking a couple steps away or juke 'em real quick in a matter of 2 seconds or less could be a problem... It definitely rewards good players who actually think.

Believe me when I say it, but I've faced tons of good scouts when I was playing as a hale, and I played as a hale a lot. Countering and juking is something that you can literally do to avoid all that goomba mess.

Point is: these players needs to get rewarded for their skill. There are some hales who just let themselves get stomped (walking in a straight line, being TOO predictable, etc) and that is *their* problem for not acting/countering.

Nerfing the damage sounds harsh imo. Well, as long as it is not nerfed *too hard*, it should sound really nice.
I would recommend nerfing the height/velocity by a bit needed to stomp so it'll reduce the amount of times you'll see a scout try to find a high ground to jump from to stomp the hale. It'll probably force them to use the atomizer which is a drawback by itself. p;

Also, don't hales in VSH have dynamic super jumps? Should be easier to catch scouts that way tbh.

I'm no VSH admin, but just wanted to shoot out my thoughts about scouts and the suggestion afterwards incase anyone would find it useful.

 

[Heather]

Isn't it just possible to play with goomba_minspeed? Make it so that players in general would need way more velocity in order to register a goomba. I've tried it on my server, worked just fine.

Nerfing the damage sounds harsh imo. Well, as long as it is not nerfed *too hard*, it should sound really nice.
I would recommend nerfing the height/velocity by a bit needed to stomp so it'll reduce the amount of times you'll see a scout try to find a high ground to jump from to stomp the hale. It'll probably force them to use the atomizer which is a drawback by itself. p;

Also, doesn't vsh hales have dynamic super jumps? Should be easier to catch scouts that way tbh.

The only thing giving scouts the height to do the goomba jump spam as it stands is having the winger out for the height boost, changing the minspeed would force them to use atomizer which does sound like a compromise but this isn't solely a scout related issue, pyros and soldiers don't remotely struggle to nail hale with the speed gained from rocket jumping/flare jumping.
Ultimately not my decision to make at the end of the day, just in my opinion goomba being so rewarding for what it is at the moment is a bit ridiculous especially on maps that cater to it.

As for the Cvar you mentioned, yeah it'd be worth mentioning/adding to the check list as an option so thanks for bringing it up

 

[SharpTips]

The only thing giving scouts the height to do the goomba jump spam as it stands is having the winger out for the height boost, changing the minspeed would force them to use atomizer which does sound like a compromise but this isn't solely a scout related issue, pyros and soldiers don't remotely struggle to nail hale with the speed gained from rocket jumping/flare jumping.
Ultimately not my decision to make at the end of the day, just in my opinion goomba being so rewarding for what it is at the moment is a bit ridiculous especially on maps that cater to it.

As for the Cvar you mentioned, yeah it'd be worth mentioning/adding to the check list as an option so thanks for bringing it up

Yeah but, don't forget that when you flare jump it is a bit more difficult to strafe in mid air (it takes time before your speed drops down to allow you to strafe left or right). So the only option with pyro is to either to continue flying like a rocket or press backwards to slow down. Imo, it's a bit harder to stomp with pyro. But that's just me, for others it's probably like a walk in the park. Unlike scouts, scouts can just jump and strafe like crazy, lol.

"especially on maps that cater to it." Oh yes, this is when stomping becomes a piece of cake for any scout. Smaller maps basically.
Well eitherway, I'm glad you found that command useful.

 

[Gmellow]

I wanted to add a little thing that has been already suggested long ago, and that is adding crits instead of only minicrits to demoman's primary that use a shield, the reason being that 90% of the demoknight that use a shield use the bootlegger/wee booties as their primary because having a grenade launcher is not worth over the speed boost and the health buff of one of the primary's mentioned before (and also is actually a thing I saw in every other vsh server but yea)

 

[Riven ✭]

Alright, few things from my end, as a self-proclaimed Veteran of VSH who has played multiple different versions of this mode:

1. The Bosses

In order of overall strength:

Strong: Hale, CBS
Mediocre: Horseman, Bunny
Unviable: Vagineer

Hale and CBS dominate and it's not a big surprise. The ability to use right mouse jumps and a normal Rage range makes Hale for the perfect standard Boss. CBS has available options for every single map and his lack of HP is so insignificant in the right hands that he's virtually just a Hale with a higher skill cap in exchange for a way too high damage output.

Horseman and Bunny tilt between Strong and Mediocre. On one hand, both bosses have a very clear advantage over the others, but on some maps you are genuinely either having a great time or you're having the worst games of your life. Horseman isn't allowed to camp for Tele, so he's mostly a gimped version of everyone else. Right mouse jump is an essential feature in this game and being able to climb is a situational ability unlike right mouse jumps that excel on every single map, even low ceiling maps thanks to speed acceleration if you hit the ceiling.

Vagineer is downright unviable once you add a Pyro to the team. The low rage range on top of the fact that on some maps you'll just be thrown off a platform while your ubercharge duration goes down to zero is a huge deal. All rages have an inbuilt delay before activating the crowd control effect, giving good Medics and Pyros enough time to de-escalate the situation and flee / prevent being feared.

2. Soldiers

It's no secret right now that Soldier is arguably one of the strongest classes if not the strongest on the server. He has multiple viable weapons to choose from of which the ones that excel the most simply have too much of an effect on Hale's performance.

2.1 Rocket Specialist

I have no idea why they have it. Frankly, on a server where taunt crits exist, I don't see why you'd want Soldiers to have consistent DPS from ranged shots. The only thing it does is highly gimp Hales who try to play the game because they get frozen in place by a barrage of rockets.

2.2 Battalion's Backup

Coming with the big buff years ago, BB was reworked to fill up from damage, too. Because of this, Soldiers have a readily available access to a massive damage reduction AoE field which doesn't allow Hale to prioritize and kill key classes like Engineers and Pyros.

2.3 Black Box Gunboats

If you've ever wondered what chasing a Soldier for 20 minutes feels like, look no further. They take minimal damage all while keeping you on distance.


3. Pyros

Statements are making the rounds again that Pyro is too strong, and I agree. However, some of the proposed changes I've read, from my experience as someone who abuses Pyro, will not fix the issue. Pyro requires detailed changes rather than simple, numeric changes. Increasing the cost of Airblast is a non-issue for a good Pyro. Decreasing the number of allowed Pyros is a non-issue if the right Pyro gets the slot. You're just turning Pyro into the next military base Soldier that way, it's a bandaid and not a solution.

3.1 Degreaser + Flaregun

This one is a catastrophe and needs urgent changes if you want to fix anything. The go-to strategy of a good Pyro isn't airblast spam, but when to airblast and how to severely restrict Hale from playing the game. Detonator and Flaregun are coded to allow Pyro the ability to do Pseudo-rocket jumps - this is too strong and enables unfair playstyles that Hale has virtually no way to counter. Other VSH Servers have removed Pyro's flarejumps because of this and simply allowed the Jet Pack instead, which is far more balanced.

"Why is it unbalanced?"

That's simple. In VSH, good teams will move to one spot to fight together. Pyros do not stay in that one spot. They stay away from the spot and wait for Hale to rage once the Sentry and Minigun fire becomes too overwhelming for them. Once Rage is used, the Pyros detonate jump into the spot to airblast Hale away while the teammates are stunned.

3.2 Flamethrowers in general

A common trope among new Pyros is that they love spamming airblasts. This is because there is no incentive for them to use their secondary weapon because of how effective airblast is. Other servers have handled this problem by actively draining the Flamethrower's ammo for every second it's active and limited it to not allow recharging ammo near a Dispenser while it's active. TF2 has attributes like this for other weapons, so you don't even need to write your own code for this.

3.3 Pyrojack

Little known fact to people who don't care much about it: The Pyrojack can easily be deployed while you are raged and allows you to move meaningfully faster while you're under the effect of Fear. Removing this attribute and removing the damage vulnerability to offset this would work wonders to further apply slight nerfs without downright clubbing Pyro to death.

There are many more details I can provide that can help Hale have a higher win rate against good players. For now I need to be off, but if necessary I can describe the issue of Snipers, too.

 

[Heather]

Whilst I don't necessarily think nerfing flare jumping will even remotely solve the airblast spam issue from new players on pyro that never flare jump anyway, I want to just clear up some things.

As far as i'm aware with digging through the SP there is no individual health formula used for CBS, he and Vagineer do however have 0% knockback resistance in comparison to the other 3 that have the luxury of 40%

"TF2 has attributes like this for other weapons, so you don't even need to write your own code for this"
Whilst tf2 does have attributes for this already, it has to be pulled through 2 different plugins and has to also have an exception made within the main plugin itself, as much as making an entry in the tf2items.sp file is easy in terms of defining the attribute you wish to have used with a weapon, there's more to it.
coding something like that isn't really the root issue either, it's having to hand Kevin 3 smx files just for one fix, I imagine he isn't fond of having to even change one of them, let alone 3.

 

[Heather]

I hate to seem like i'm hammering down on your points, but some things to keep in consideration.

Soldier's Blackbox and Gunboats loadout doesn't give you nearly enough height, speed or aircontrol to escape a single hale jump with ease, I feel like if a soldier can manage to avoid death with that loadout, it's deserved through smart positioning/planning and use of multiple rocket jumps compared to the single rocket needed with mantreads to shoot across the map where hale would need 2-3 jumps to do the same.

The idea shouldn't be to punish good pyro players for playing their class correctly, removing the ability to read an incoming rage just limits pyro to even more braindead tactics than before, smart plays should be rewarded. That being said, there's a lot of leeway given with airblasts, even they can be used just as a rage is initiated, only giving hale 4% rage compared to the old 5-10% in older versions of vsh, no cooldown or firing rate (older vsh version had slight increases to refire time before 1.55) and in general no class limit are all contributing factors to heavy airblast spam, giving pyros little to any reason not to spam airblast

 

[Riven ✭]

The idea shouldn't be to punish good pyro players for playing their class correctly, removing the ability to read an incoming rage just limits pyro to even more braindead tactics than before

It's too strong right now. When Hale has frankly no way of interacting with the team as soon as a decent Pyro shows up, something is wrong. This shouldn't happen with any class. We really need to finetune Pyro to be less rewarding even on a skillful level, no johns coming from me. Right now, Pyro is strong enough to potentially solo kill Hale with enough perseverance, which strongly eliminates the idea that Hale is superior to all classes. That's what he should be about, he should eliminate every class respectively in a duel. Obviously some level of skill needs to be involved in a duel, but Pyro can absolutely just dance on Hale's face right now if he does it correctly.

What Pyro needs is an identity in this mode, and it can either be Arsonist (Which is awful because his damage output on anything that isnt a Phlog is horrendous) or a Supporter, which is awful too because of how downright unfair most battles tend to become with a Pyro around.

I understand your point that you want to preserve a certain dominance for skilled Pyro players, but it's definitely the most problematic thing right now. A bad Pyro drags the team down and feeds rage, a good Pyro completely drags Hale down and prevents any kind of meaningful counterplay. Right now, I believe the focus is better off on gimping the good Pyros rather than gimping the bad ones.

For example, more airblast cost stops a bad Pyro, but not a good one, ergo it's a miniscule nerf and probably won't do much. But when you hit the less obvious strengths like his mobility, something bad players dont know jack about, you'll start giving Hale more liberty to play the game and feel less frustrated about it because you'll gimp the source of the problem, good Pyros that know how to position themselves.

There should always be a skill+reward scale and Pyro's reward scale is skyrocketing the better you get at the game.

 

[Brick]

@Riven ✭ You make some incredibly good and well explained points, but i have to agree with heather on this one, the VSH meta has shifted to primarily Knockback heavy classes like heavy, sniper and pyro (away from soldier). Although i agree with you that rocket specialist shouldn't be a thing, the rest of the weapons are fairly balanced in my opinion. all except mantreads, which clearly needs a nerf, as it is a crutch weapon meant for an easy escape.

Removing Flare jumping would be too much of a change i think, it removes a couple of fun alternate playstyles that don't require airblasting primarily used by @Abject . In my opionion the biggest, and also fairest hit we can give pyro's is a significant delay in airblast. (by which i mean 2-3 seconds) This wouldn't nerf pyro too much for good players like @Racer911-1 and @Furken and effectively removes inexperienced pyro's get of of jail free card. You didn't say this but i hear people saying that pyro should have have increased rage build to nerf airblasting. but that would not prevent them from spamming first of all and would also cause a sort of group punishment effect, that can- and often does harm the rest of the team when they get inevitably raged instead.

@Heather and @Tolfx are currently working on global knockback changes as a starter and i think the most logical course of action would be to finish and perfect that first and then work on other balance changes. as we currently are not yet sure what would be a good percentage to add since our previous test with 20%was wayy too much.

Nevertheless I and all the others appreciate all the opinions we can get cause it helps us get a bigger picture of things, and i would encourage others to add theirs too below, especially the pyro's since they would be the ones that get hit the hardest by this nerf.

 

[Heather]

Feel like I should clarify where this is at.
After testing various levels of knockback resistance, a lot of the regulars who had helped me and myself believe that knockback may not be as big of an issue as initially thought as a lot of the knockback seems to come from the sheer volume of people shooting hale at similar times, changes to knockback resistance did little to change how much knockback 2-3 snipers can put into hale.

With that in mind, i'd advise pursuing class restrictions on certain classes and releasing other class restrictions to offset it, whilst also looking towards better regular maps, as maps like warebloom do little to combat hale getting pinned to walls by sentries (that are unaffected by knockback resistance) and other maps like crevice overly punish hale when his momentum is killed, sending him straight to the bottom of the map.